Author
Topic: Overdrive! (Read 5338 times)

Well i thought i would post this since this is what i am spending all my time on instead of being here.

basically this is my official "waste" manga, to practice stuff and ideas to see what works and what doesnt, until i am sick of it so i dont blow it on my actual stories. there will be cliches galore as i just muck about basically :P

If you want to critque, please read the spoiler

Spoiler

I am primarily focusing on: (please critique if you want)-background use (3d and other stuff)-effects/textures-camera angles-range of poses-story/jokes/humor-story flow/panelling/layout

what i am not working on: (so therefore please dont critique, because i'm not focusing on these)-realistic-ness/accuracy (speed is more the focus)-proportions (hands/eyes and stuff will be wrong)

otherwise, here is the first pages of OverdriveREADS RIGHT TO LEFT (Japanese style)

Chapter 1 - What can be done, will be done...

let me know what you think, i think my sense of humour is a bit different to most people's so you probably wont find it funny haha :P

Actually pretty funny and understandeable on that front. Going too weird might throw off the readers but what you've made so far is hilarious in it's own right.

These are truly just nit-picky comments. The intro page could've worked with one panel with the same expression and woosh effect. Just place the same dialogue on that same page. It works better as an intro page rather than a small panel.

The introduction of the glasses guy - He steps into frame too soon. He could either be off frame for when he first talks (you'd need to show his face on the second though) or in the distance where you could recognize his face as they spoke.

Just my opinion though. In terms of output and shading it looks pretty well. Like the effects too.

And ah, I felt a little claustrophobic at the size of that class. Looks a bit narrow.

@lego thanks man i appreciate the comment, especially the nitpicking, keep it up i need that sort of criticism :P

i see what you mean about the introduction of the characters, thats handy to remember for next time. true about the double panel, i want to keep the panel count down as well anyway to keep it tidy, i will look out for joining panels up.

ahhh yeah the classroom, getting the scale with the drawings as well right was a pain so i just guessed. it looks fine in sketchup, but it was a pain to lineup. perhaps a different angle would have been better but oh well thats the whole point of this manga to test stuff out :P

Okay so to critique what you want critiqued to I'll lay it down bit by bit.

Background Use- What backgrounds? Ha ha sorry, no I understand not everything needs unnecessary details in the background and you have pretty well cut down on all of that. The point of this sequence being the classroom reveal joke at the end so I will not say anything for that, it's fine. For the look the classroom, as said above, really tiny. It looks like the characters are in scale to the desks but everything is packed super tight to the space. The couch looked fine but the desks strike me as looking overly clean compared to the characters. Tiny details though, if you didn't ask about backgrounds I wouldn't have looked that hard.

Effects/Textures- The shading and stuff looks fine, I think things are filled in where they need to be filled in. The action lines in the two panels at the bottom of the last page did strike me as off though, since they both follow different directions.

Camera Angles + Range of Poses - As for flow, there are a lot of heads in the pages and a lot of panels. It's all packed in tightly, which isn't bad. As Lego said glasses guy enters in a strange manner. In the big reveal panel the characters look really stiff, and not like they are reacting as big as the words suggest. For poses and stuff, I think this is fine, though it is a lot of head & shoulders.

Story/Jokes/Humor/Story Flow/Panelling- I myself am not fond of meta humor too much, and this seemed to follow pretty basic anime conventions in terms of character behavior and reactions. Two "dumb" characters to the straight man. In terms of flow, it progressed at a fine pace. Paneling as well is pretty packed but you made sure to follow the age old rule of no more then 8 panels a page. Text bubbles are bursting all around here and overall I thought it was fine. I myself don't really think much of this kind of humor because I've seen it so much, but that is not to demean it. Like your other work it seems you are channeling your artistic struggles in this and venting things like difficultly with humor, through the characters.

I think comedy is a very weird thing that cannot be planned or thought about too much. In terms of this format I don't really laugh at comics myself because they lack timing and delivery. So it's just a strange thing to do you know, you just gotta make sure it's natural and flowing I guess?

@manimal thanks for the detailed critique, i look forward to your insightful opinion on any of my future work as well :P

Although the classroom reveal was there, that wasnt the reason for the lack of backgrounds before, thats was more my lack of creativity, which lead to the classroom reveal idea later on as a cheap way of introducing a background haha. surprisingly the hardest thing is getting the 3D model back into the manga and getting the scale/proportions right, i might try and practice that more.

really i'm trying to force myself through the "i cant draw that" hurdle, and be more acceptive of my own lack of skill during my learning process :P

Yes this manga is indeed fundamentally me venting when i run out of ideas, and using every cliche i hit when i dont. i love meta-humour to the point of obsession so its funny to me at least. im hoping to randomly add legitimate plot and to funnel it into longer 2-4 page stories at some point, to which the characters will undoubtedly point it out :P

It is 110% generic i am (sort of but not really) proud to say :P

to be honest i agree its hard to write humor, and i would prefer to write fantasy/adventure, but i want something that i can reverse out of if i mess up, so a single page gag works for me as practice. i would hate to start something like fairy tail and get 3 chapters in and hate myself for it :P

also being 4th wall oriented, i can change any aspect/setting and make it "the author decided to change X" punchline, if i want to change anything. i think that was my first thought when i had the idea.

thanks haha i wondered as much myself for the straight man, he shouts too much :Pi think it will smooth out more as i do more pages, i hope :P the whole point of this manga is to find out what works and what doesn't, so in some ways i hope to make lots of mistakes :P

LATEST: page 5. i mucked up the flow on the last panel, but i noticed i had the font on bold for all the previous ones, so this ones a little more readable now that i fixed it :Pi think the joke is sort of stupid to say the least but oh well :P

Hey there :) I think you did a nice job, although backgrounds are a bit scarce for my taste. I didn't get its a class room until I read the text, because the room itself is too small. I thought it's a store room , oops If it was me and you wanted to draw this from above, I would delete the wall on the left side.

Your figurines need a bit of practice as the poses often are a bit stiff. Did you try searching for pose references? There are actually some nice ones on Deviant Art, or just google for a stance, that's what I do atm. :)

The flow itself is ok I'd say, now we're all waiting for the story to actually start

Logged

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. (S. Hawkins)

@miska yeah i have a hard time giving critique, thanks for reading it!

@gabryel yeah i need more practice. i dont use much reference when i draw, but i do when i practice. its more i dont know what pose to draw than i cant draw it i think, i hope :P

if anyone is wondering why i havnt posted when i was full blast "im gonna make millions of pages", i cut my finger and i am waiting for it to heal lol. it wasnt a bad cut, but it hurts when i touch anything or hold anything probably in a day or two i will be fine :P

The frog perspective is odd, is the speaking character sitting on the ground while telling them that he has a good idea? And your hands could need a bit of practice (which is ok, I think hands are actually harder than faces), the one on the chin is too small.

Second page:

The windowed wall picture has a nice angle but somehow looks bent - is the background curved or is it my eyes tricking me?

The classroom still looks small-ish and if this is supposed to be the direct sequel to the pages above, it's odd that there are now no chairs and only a few tables.

The CO2 had me chuckling i'm glad I don't have to organize any party with those guys XD

Logged

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. (S. Hawkins)

I laughed at the CO2 joke too. The timing was just too good for that one.

The large panel one is the secret to Kubo Tite's Manga. Dude can eat up page space like a king. Don't underestimate it though! I think the opposite is bad too, where too much happens on a page and there's no emotional impact.

Love the overall clean look you're maintaining suuper. The improvements you need to make won't be so hectic to integrate because your foundation looks pretty solid imo